Walmart's One Step Closer to Making Good on Promise to Build Supercenter on Ledbetter Dr.

​Back in February, City Hall proudly announced that Walmart was going to build, build, build all 'round town -- "more than a dozen new projects in the city of Dallas," said the release, with a Supercenter at R.L. Thornton and Ledbetter Drive at the very tippy-top of that list. And I see that project, all 180,000 square feet of retail, is about to take one giant step closer to becoming reality: The City Plan Commission's meeting agenda for next week has just been posted, and there, close to the bottom, you'll find Walmart's application for a planned development district near that intersection on a lush piece of undeveloped property that abuts Five Mile Creek.

Which isn't to say there aren't some concerns from city staff, which wonders why Walmart didn't choose to build across Ledbetter, where, I believe, there used to be a Sam's. And there's an issue with Walmart's plans to rip out all those trees:

Ideally, the proposed development could
have been located on the north side of Ledbetter which is zoned RR Regional Retail
and is in need of re-development. The former big box retail site in Village Fair on the
north side of Ledbetter is approximately 771,000 square feet in area. The developable
portion of the request site is approximately 820,000 square feet in area. Staff is also
concerned with the amount of grading that will be necessary to develop the request site
and the number or trees which will have to be removed. The applicant is requesting
they only be required to mitigate 10 percent of the 6,468 caliper inches of protected
trees that will be removed. They are proposing a tree preservation area in lieu of
providing required mitigation, but the area they are proposing to preserve is already
protected as floodplain.

While staff has the aforementioned concerns with the proposed development, staff
acknowledges the site could be developed today with a use that is permitted under the
existing zoning subject to all tree mitigation and code requirements. Therefore staff can
support the request subject to the applicant providing additional tree mitigation.

Read the whole thing here, beginning on Page 290. And, yes, there are several items of note on the CPC's agenda -- like, I see 7-Eleven on Lower Greenville's going for its late-hours specific use permit, finally.

1) How typical of the Observer commentariat, bitching for years about the lack of development south of the river, then when somebody agrees to pony up you bitch about how the project's not being done exactly how you want it done.

2) When the Hypermart was built, the site had shitty access but was a large available parcel in a healthy retail area that suited Walmart demographically. There were several new car dealers operating, some *very* successfully, on Garland Avenue at the time. Now it's just a site with shitty access.

3) As mentioned by others, Walmart is in the process of upgrading the site at Midpark and Central. I'm starting to have some hope now for the area bounded by LBJ, Central, Spring Valley, and the creek. The crack house apartments at LBJ and Meandering Way were nuked a couple of years ago. The area is no longer isolated by the old Central/LBJ clusterfuck interchange. Now if the city will get busy cleaning up the two-decade-old "Mayhem on Maham" problem, those neighborhoods can flourish.

One hopes the City and Council will oppose this to make up for the destruction they allowed when they allowed a change of zoning that destroyed all the trees and the creek at Timber Creek on NW Highway and Skillman. If there is space that is already treeless, use that. And certainly DO NOT give them a variance on mitigation is this site is allowed to proceed.

I have to agree with the city staff. They should be redeveloping the site across the street. But, apparently Walmart likes to just abandon sites and leave them to others to redevelop. Look at the old Hypermart (Garland Road and 635) and the old Walmart south of 75 and Spring Valley (though it is being redeveloped by someone). Walmart needs to look more closely at doing more remodeling and less abandoning and building a new location a short distance away.

There is a lack of development in southern Dallas, because of this lack of development doesn't justify the need to build in the manner Walmart is building in. You should research sustainability and then write your post. Walmart promotes sustainability, yet they are going against one of the main objectives which is to use existing space. Southern Dallas is full of tree's unlike north Dallas, yet there are too many vacant big box stores in the area that can be renovated and re-used, with exisitng drainage, concrete, structure, etc. If Walmart wanted to help the community they can re-use Big T Bizzare and change the entire face of that area, and rid the sale of less desirable, fake, merchandise. The desirable retail in the Bizzare could possible do better with Walmart rental space. The voices of Southern Dallas have been ripped of their vocal cords. Before its all over, every wooded tree over 100 yrs old in southern dallas will be destroyed, then abandoned by retail, again. First it was Safeway...then Minyards...then Krogers...then Kmart/Target....now Walmart. How many big box "Flea Markets" can one area handle.

There's a real distinction between re-development on land that is already a slab of concrete versus taking out acres of woodland and hillside to create new slabs of concrete. This is not nitpicky stuff. It's common sense.

While I think that Big T Plaza can be bad somedays, I think there is room enough for that Walmart and Big T. Again, Walmart, look at the plaza that is on the SE corner of Loop 12 and I-35(the old K-Mart site).